Google Chrome has established itself as a leading browser worldwide. The success is due to its speed, flexibility, and many other features that allow users to enjoy a great browsing experience. Chrome Sync is one top feature allows users to backup their browsing data such as browsing history, bookmarks and passwords. You can access the backed up data across multiple devices and continue your workflow easily. However, you may encounter various issues when trying to synchronize the browser data in Chrome. In this article, we will explore various ways of resolving common Chrome Sync issues.
Some Common Chrome Sync Problems
Here are some of the annoying errors which prevent sync from working properly.
- Sync not working – The sync features fails to work on your PC or Mac completely or constantly reoccurs whenever you try to synchronize your data in Chrome browser.
- Bookmark not syncing/ not working – The feature can synchronize other data but fails to sync your bookmarks.
- Passwords, open tabs and extensions not syncing – Issue affects syncing passwords, extensions and open tabs.
- Admin disabled Chrome sync – Sync failure due to administrator’s settings.
If you encounter any of the above problems, try one of the following suggestions to resolve the issue.
1. Disable your Antivirus Temporarily
Antivirus is a must-have tool to ensure your computer is safe from malicious attacks that can compromise the integrity of your data and system. However, some antivirus features may interfere with the Chrome Sync feature and result in synchronization problems. You can disable real-time protection in antivirus software and check whether it helps to fix the issue.
Follow the below steps in Windows 11:
- Search and open Windows Security app.
- Go to “Virus & threat protection” section and click on “Manage settings” link under “Virus & threat protection settings” heading.
- Turn off “Real-time protection” option.
If you are using a Windows 10 PC, you may have to disable Windows Defender.
- Click the Windows Start button, type “Defender” in the search box and open the Windows Defender settings.
- Go to “Windows Security” tab, select “Virus & threat protection” under the “Protection areas” section.
- On the resulting Windows Defender Security Centre, click the “Virus & threat protection settings” link.
- Switch off the “Real-time protection” to disable the antivirus temporarily.
Check whether the Chrome Sync issue has been resolved. If not, you may need to check and disable any other third-party antivirus app you have on the system. You can also completely uninstall and reinstall the antivirus app to check the situation.
Mac does not come with default antivirus app, make sure to disable any antivirus software if you have installed from a third-party.
2. Turn Chrome Sync Feature Off / Sign Out of Your Account
You can turn off the sync feature in Chrome and turn it on again. This will sign you out of Google account and then you can sign in to start sync afresh.
- Use the URL, “chrome://settings/” to open the settings page.
- Under the “You and People” section, click the “Turn off” button to disable sync.
- Click “Turn off” on the resulting pop-up to confirm. You may check the box at the bottom of the pop-up window to clear all the synchronized data.
- To enable sync, click “Turn on Sync…” under the “You and People” section.
- Enter your Gmail credentials to login. Chrome will prompt you to confirm whether you want to turn on Sync; click “Turn on” to continue.
Now, check the sync feature is working.
3. Reset Chrome Sync
When you sync, Google stores the data on cloud server. You can also set passphrase to encrypt your data so that Google can’t read. You can reset sync and passphrase and then turn on the feature to start synchronizing your data again.
- Type the URL, “chrome://settings/syncSetup” to open advanced sync settings.
- Select “Manage synced data on Google Dashboard” to go to your dashboard.
- This will open the synced data details in a new tab. Scroll down the page and at the bottom click “Reset Sync” button.
- Click “OK” to start the process and follow the reset wizard to complete.
- Once done, sign in back to Chrome to start syncing your data from scratch.
Remember, resetting sync will delete the data on the server. However, the data on your local device will remain untouched. So you can re-sync your local data again to the server.
4. Clear Browser Cache
Google Chrome keeps a cache of your visited sites to minimize the loading time whenever you visit the websites later. Sometimes cleaning the browser cache can resolve the sync error.
- Open “chrome://settings” page and go to “Privacy and security” settings section.
- Click “Clear browsing data” option on the right pane.
- On the new pop-up switch to the “Advanced” tab and set “All time” on the “Time range” field.
- Check the browsing / download history, cookies, cached images and files options and click “Clear Data” button.
This will delete the selected history and clean up your browser. Now check whether you can able to use the sync feature without issues.
5. Uninstall and Reinstall Google Chrome
If none of the above solution works, you may have to uninstall Chrome from your computer and reinstall it.
- On Windows, open the Control Panel and select “Programs” to open the programs and features. Select Chrome from the list of the installed programs and click “Uninstall”. You can also uninstall Chrome from “Windows Settings > Apps > Installed Apps” section.
- On Mac, go to “Applications” folder in Finder. Drag and drop Google Chrome app to the Trash bin on your Dock.
After deleting Chrome, download and install it afresh. This should mostly solve your sync problems.
Summary
When you use Chrome on multiple devices, the Chrome Sync feature allows you to synchronize browser data across all your devices. However, you may encounter different issues when synchronizing data in Chrome. We hope, one of the above solutions helped to resolve your sync issues.
